The present invention relates to trailer hitches and more particularly to a novel hitch assembly specially adapted for interconnecting a towing vehicle to a drawn vehicle irrespective of the vertical positioning of the tongue of the drawn vehicle, relative to the ground and irrespective of the bumper height of the towing vehicle.
It is conventional to interconnect a towing vehicle to a drawn vehicle by mounting a coupling element, such as a ball member on the bumper of the towing vehicle. The ball member is received within a socket provided on the draw bar of the drawn vehicle. However, as is often the case with off the road vehicles such as four-wheel drive pick-up trucks and the like, the bumper is considerably higher from the ground than the tongue height of a boat or house trailer, etc. Thus, if it is desired to interconnect the towing vehicle to the drawn vehicle with the tongue of the drawn vehicle being maintained substantially horizontally, it is necessary to provide some type of adapter unit secured on the towing vehicle.
Such adapters generally are large and heavy and require a multiplicity of struts or braces secured to the frame or chassis of the towing vehicle. It is necessary to suitably position the adapter unit, which generally includes a ball member, below the bumper and weld or bolt the braces to the chassis. Of course, it can be appreciated that if it is desired to tow a different vehicle, wherein the tongue height of the drawn vehicle is at a greater height than the adapter unit, such adapter unit is hardly functional. The limited use of large adapter units plus their attendant weight, high cost and the excessive time needed for installation make conventional adapter units undesirable. Certainly, it would be advantageous to provide a hitch assembly mountable on the ball member of a bumper for connection to the tongue of a drawn vehicle so that the tongue is maintained substantially horizontal, irrespective of the tongue height from the ground.
Accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to provide a hitch assembly for interconnecting a towing vehicle and a drawn vehicle which includes a coupling means having hitch or first and second components, which are disassemblable, one being removably received within the other to permit preselected relative positioning therebetween. The first component is removeably mountable on a coupling element (such as a bumper-mounted ball member) of the towing vehicle and the second component is detachably connectable to the drawn vehicle. The first and second components are positionable, one relative to the other, in a selected one of a multiplicity of orientations. Such selected positioning is necessary to provide a hitch assembly which may be interchangeably used for interconnecting a towing vehicle with a drawn vehicle irrespective of bumper and tongue height.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a hitch assembly in which one of the components, preferrably that which is connected to the drawn vehicle, includes a tubular portion having opposed open ends. The other component is positionable through a selected one of the ends of the tubular portion for preselected positioning within the tubular portion. The result is a construction which serves to interconnect, by means of a "lowered step", a ball member mounted on a bumper which is higher than a desired horizontal positioning of the tongue of a drawn vehicle. In another orientation the tubular portion is rotated generally 180.degree. and the insertable portion is positioned through the other end. In this manner, the ball member on the bumper, if disposed at substantially the same height as the tongue, will be aligned with the tongue.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a hitch assembly, as described above, which may be used on a towing vehicle having a bumper height lower than the normally horizontal height of the tongue of the drawn vehicle. In this configuration, the components of the coupling means are suitably positioned to "step up" so as to provide an interconnection between the towing and drawn vehicle.
These and additional objects and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent after a consideration of the drawing and detail description of the preferred embodiment.